


Clock Tower

by aestivates



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Amnesia, Friendship, M/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Romance, Tumblr: imagineyourotp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 11:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aestivates/pseuds/aestivates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time never stops for a broken clock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clock Tower

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted on tumblr.](http://kanayavriska.tumblr.com/post/33730711278/ao3-dave-looks-out-of-his-window-and-watches) Written for the imagineyourotp prompt, "Imagine person A recovering from amnesia and remembering who person B is."
> 
> It got away from me a little.

Dave looks out of his window and watches him walk by every single morning.

For some reason, he always expects to see him stop, look up, and smile.

It never happens. It's starting to make his chest hurt.

*

It's not that he doesn't like the outdoors, but out there is a world that doesn't feel like his, full of people who look at him like they know every single thought in his head and greet him with pitying smiles. One time there was a blind girl who went up to him in the middle of the sidewalk, hugged him and cried on his shoulder, and all he could do was pat her on the back awkwardly until her friend--he assumed--came and guided her away.

It was strange to realize that her friend was the same person he watches from his window. It was even stranger to watch him turn away without ever making eye contact.

Dave usually remains within the confines of his small downtown apartment and works on his comic and his blog, both of which are ironic gold and comfort him in some dumb way he would never admit. The characters in his comic have the type of goofy friendship he thinks he'd like to have with someone.

The only friend he really has is Rose, who isn't very likely to trip down the stairs and fall flat on her face, but he appreciates her company all the same. She says she's his older sister, which Dave is not entirely sure he believes, but she comes over on the weekends with baked goods and apple juice and talks about the book she's writing, and he thinks he loves her like he would family anyway.

One time she fell asleep in her favourite chair, and he snuck a peek at a scribbled note in the open book in her lap.

  
  
  
_'Karkat waits for him every day at the clock tower.'_   


He's never heard her mention a character named Karkat in her book. It's a strange name, but he sort of likes how it flows off the tongue. Kar-kat. Karkat. Karkat Vantas.

Vantas?

*

It's a chilly morning, so Dave wraps one of Rose's homemade scarves (purple, like everything she knits) around his neck, grabs the white fedora off the mantle and leaves his apartment looking like a suitably douchey hipster. No one on the street is sparing him a second glance for a change, and it's kind of liberating, if weird.

He passes by a store window and catches a glimpse of his reflection, which both startles him and promptly ends his momentary puzzlement. It must be that no one actually recognizes him under the scarf and the hat and his ever-present shades, which all sort of effectively mask his face. It probably wouldn't hurt to be out and about more often if he can pull this off during the colder months. Maybe he'll actually roll around in the snow and play with the frogs or some shit. (Do frogs play in the snow? Shit. Probably not. That was a dumb thought. He doesn't even like frogs.)

Dave keeps walking and somehow ends up eleven blocks away from home and counting. He can't remember the last time he ventured out this far, but he feels oddly safe under his pseudo-disguise and actually, he's not sure what was even stopping him before. He finds his mind kind of peacefully blank, content on people-watching and taking in buildings and street signs that seem incredibly familiar but shouldn't be. He passes a record shop that he knows he got his turntable from a long time ago, and later a bookstore that he knows Rose loves and wants to buy one day. He passes an obnoxiously large movie poster featuring Matthew McConaughey's heavily photoshopped face, and he only just manages to give an amused snort into his scarf before a sudden gust whips his hat right off his head and he's forced to chase it down the street.

Later, he stops in front of a bridal shop. There's an excessively glittery green gown on display, and he remembers long black hair and the scent of pine and freshly cut grass and the sound of quiet sobs muffled against his chest, and he wonders what it is about him that makes girls cry. Better not to question it, probably.

*

The overcast sky has darkened to a murky, unappealing grey by the time Dave decides he should probably turn around. He tilts his head up, trying to find the sun behind the clouds so he can figure out what time it might be, but then he finds something better in the form of a giant clock.

That is, it _would_ be better if it wasn't broken, but a solid minute of staring dictates that the oversized hands probably haven't budged an inch in about fifty years. It's pretty sad, he thinks, that the clock has lost literally its only purpose in life and no one has decided it was worth fixing--and worse yet, has decided it should remain clearly on display, sticking out over the rest of the buildings like a sore brick thumb, probably to remain until the city decides to knock it down and build an Ikea or some shit.

Sure is ironic, Dave thinks, that time won't stop for a broken clock.

*

He's not sure what leads him to the clock tower, except for this odd sort of feeling that he refuses to acknowledge is pity for a goddamn building. It's pitiful, alright, with crumbling corners that look like a giant took a bite out of them and any remaining respectable architecture marred by the unimaginative tags of local graffiti artists.

Something written in dark teal over the opening archway catches his attention.

  
  
  
_'YOU M4Y H4V3 FORGOTT3N US BUT W3 W1LL N3V3R FORG3T YOU'_   


There are a few other scribbles, all in bright different colours. Together, they paint an oddly cheerful picture over the decrepit brick wall. It's a strange but interesting contrast.

For the first time on his walk, he takes his camera out of his pocket.

"Hey! You there! This isn't just some--Dave?"

The fact that someone besides Rose has just called his name is more than a little distracting, and when he turns to find out who the source of it was the sight is definitely distracting. His camera slips from his hold and lands gently in a thick layer of dead leaves.

"Oh," says Dave, because it's the person he always watches from his window and it's a little surreal to be seeing him close up for the first time since he led his blind friend away. "Hey."

"What are you doing?" says the sort-of stranger slowly, cautiously. Both his voice and his face are incredibly expressive. His dark brows are furrowed over widened eyes, and Dave realizes they're the same rare shade of red as his own.

"I was gonna do this thing called taking a picture," says Dave, scooping up his camera and tucking it back in his pocket, and for some reason he can't stop himself from tossing out some bait. "Why, do you live here? No offense, dude, but wow. I think you've got yourself a bit of a fixer-upper."

"No, I don't _live_ here," is the immediate response in a huff, but then his shoulders slump, his hands slip into the pockets of his hoodie and he sighs at the ground. "You don't know who I am, right? What am I even fucking saying? Of course you don't. I'm a complete stranger, like always. Like fucking _always_. I don't even know why I keep coming." He makes this rumbly noise of frustration from deep in his throat and turns around, refusing to make eye contact again. "Look, just--take whatever pictures you want. I'll leave you alone. I shouldn't even fucking be here to begin with."

"Karkat," says Dave, without thinking, but suddenly he is absolutely sure he's right. "You wait here every day, don't you?"

Karkat's head snaps back so fast it almost gives Dave whiplash. "What?"

"Karkat Vantas," says Dave, but before he can say anything else Karkat's flying at him and for some reason, Dave is so convinced he's going to get punched in the face but in the next moment, there are arms wrapped tightly around his neck and a face buried into his shoulder.

There's a long moment, a tense moment, where Dave doesn't know what the fuck he should do, where he's worried that Karkat is going to burst into tears just like Terezi (Terezi?), but several seconds pass and it doesn't happen, and Dave slowly brings his arms around Karkat and holds him tightly. He lowers his face into Karkat's thick, coarse hair. He breathes in. He closes his eyes.

Images and sounds and emotions flash by, of a computer game that gave them so much but somehow took everything away at the same time, of the strange alien trolls he ignored and then befriended and then fell in love with, of the universe they saved and of the new universe they finally managed to create just for them.

He remembers a long fight of blood and time and how he hadn't been strong enough but his friends had refused to let him die, even if it was heroic, even if it was just, and in a moment of desperation they'd made a deal with the game, that they could carry him to their new universe if his entire timeline up until that point was scratched. His memories for his life.

He remembers things he shouldn't, the things that had happened over his prone, blank slate of a body. Jade had sworn at everyone and told them he wouldn't want this, that she didn't want to see him like this, and then she'd hugged him and cried. John had tried to smile, and maybe there were tears in his eyes too but he'd refused to let them show because he'd promised everyone that Striders didn't give up so easily. Terezi believed him, and said she'd build him a tower and cover it in delicious messages so he could follow his nose and find them.

Rose never let him go.

And Karkat waited every single day for him to come back.

"Fuck," chokes Dave, because suddenly there's a lump in his throat and he simultaneously feels like the most pathetic person in all of the universes and also the most loved. "I'm so sorry."

"Shut up. Just shut the fuck up," mumbles Karkat, and Dave holds him tighter and does.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [spire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7480764) by [hexaS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hexaS/pseuds/hexaS)




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